Apple and Mozilla Need to Start Getting Inspiration from Microsoft

There is no exception to what must become a status quo, both Apple and Mozilla need to start getting inspiration from Microsoft, copying if you will. Although copying is not a term that would describe best intentions, in this case, customers' needs will be in the spotlight. Apple and Mozilla need to implement Protect Mode in Firefox and Safari as a standard of browser security.

The argument for this are two scenarios that involve the Safari and Firefox browsers as attack vectors. First off, at the beginning of April, Firefox proved that it could be exploited in the same manner as Internet Explorer in attacks targeting the .ANI file format vulnerability across the Windows platform.

In this context, the only difference as far as security is concerned is the fact that Internet Explorer 7 running in Protect Mode on Windows Vista offered mitigation against the successful exploits of the Windows Animated Cursor Handling vulnerability. In a similar scenario, Firefox 2.0 on Windows Vista, offered zero extra protection, and this as users generally perceive Firefox to be a browser more secure than IE.

Additionally, Apple has been proven to face the same issues with the Safari browser that ships by default with Mac OS X. At CanSecWest Vancouver 2007 a hacker exploited a Safari vulnerability in order to own one of the two Macs that were up for grabs for the hackers. Safari running in Protected Mode, in a manner similar to that of IE7 ion Windows Vista would have acted as a mitigation.

But just to be clear, IE7 running in Protected Mode in Windows Vista means that the browser processes function at only the lowest possible privileges. With IE7 in Protected Mode an application or an attacker will not be able to install malicious code, write, alter, edit, or destroy data on a Vista machine.

In fact, Internet Explorer 7 in Protected Mode runs with lower privileges than Notepad, and is restricted to low-integrity folders, files, and registry keys: the temporary Internet Files folder, the History folder, the Cookies folder, the Favorites folder, and the Windows Temporary Files folders.